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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133304">Four Unrequited Loves of the Holy See, and One Fulfilled</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/pseuds/hangingfire'>hangingfire</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Young Pope (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Drabble, F/M, Four and One, M/M, Requited Unrequited Love, Unrequited Love, Yuletide Madness Drabble Invitational, Yuletide Treat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 14:42:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>506</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28133304</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangingfire/pseuds/hangingfire</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Love and the Vatican: it's complicated. Five drabbles about just how complicated it is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lenny Belardo/Andrew Dussolier, Lenny Belardo/Esther Aubry, Mario Assente/Bernardo Gutiérrez, Sister Mary/Angelo Voiello, Sofia Dubois/John Brannox</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Yuletide Madness 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Four Unrequited Loves of the Holy See, and One Fulfilled</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfgrandfather/gifts">Elfgrandfather</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Esther, I love God because it is so painful to love human beings. I love a God that never leaves or that always leaves me. God, the absence of God, always reassuring and definitive. I am a priest, I have renounced my fellow man, my fellow women, because I don't want to suffer, because I'm incapable of withstanding the heartbreak of love, because I'm unhappy, like all priests. It would be wonderful to love you the way you want to be loved, but it's not possible. Because I am not a man. I am a coward."<br/>— Lenny Belardo, <i>The Young Pope</i></p><p>"For that is what love means to me: forsaking myself."<br/>— John Brannox, <i>The New Pope</i></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>One</i>
</p><p>They walked through the gates as dawn was breaking and saw Sister Mary, waiting just as she had when he’d tried to run away. For a moment Andrew saw her simultaneously young and old, tall and diminished. Returning to the palace, he glanced sidelong at Lenny and was overcome with the need to reach out and hold his hand. Then pull on that hand, pull him close, then closer, then too close. Maybe Lenny would accept it. But the possibility that he won’t was, as always, too overwhelming. Bad enough to fear the rejection of love; to live it, unbearable.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <i>Two</i>
</p><p>Only after Gutierrez returned from New York did Assente really see him at last. Success lends glamour to a man and Gutierrez had by all accounts handled Kurtwell in a way that even Voiello envied, and Assente admired that. But now he saw that what he had mistaken for softness and weakness in Gutierrez was in fact kindness, grace, a listening ear, and an open heart. He had never realized before how much strength a man needed to sustain those qualities in his soul, and he thought, if he would touch me, perhaps some of that grace would be mine.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <i>Three</i>
</p><p>When Pius XIII was beatified, Esther’s sentence was commuted at the humble request of His Holiness John XXIV, <i>né</i> Angelo Voiello. Reunited with her son, she went to work for the nuns, to help the Abbess run their affairs. Sometimes in quiet moments, she would sit in the grotto where Lenny touched her body for the first and only time. She considered taking holy orders, but she needed a better reason than simply a path to the Blessed Pius’s side in Heaven. So in the grotto, she would meditate and wait for the sign that she was sure would come.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <i>Four</i>
</p><p>John XXIV wrote Sister Mary the week before Pius XIII’s canonization mass. Two days later she stepped out of a helicopter onto Vatican grounds for the first time in years and spoke his name: Angelo. <i>You are very beautiful at night</i>, he’d said to her once; she was more beautiful now in the sun. Africa turned her bronzed, strong. She embraced him and kissed his cheek. He wanted to say: stay, I can’t bear to watch you get on the helicopter again. But if he’d been unable to ask her as a cardinal, he couldn’t possibly do it as Pope.</p>
<hr/><p>
  <i>And one</i>
</p><p>Sofia Dubois and John Brannox watched the canonization mass on television, and for a brief, painful moment, Sofia missed it all desperately. She watched His Holiness John XXIV speaking the formula of canonization and started composing press statements in her mind, drawing up talking points, making lists of newspaper and television contacts. But when her John reached over and took her hand, her anxious soul quieted. She smiled and leaned over to rest her head on his shoulder. She never imagined herself a woman suited for peace, but having found it at John’s side, she hoped she’d never lose it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/elfgrandfather">Elfgrandfather</a> for requesting <i>The Young Pope</i>, and thanks as well to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/aproclivity">aproclivity</a> for the beta-read. Happy Yuletide!</p><p><a href="https://hangingfire.tumblr.com/post/639148712851062784">Yuletide reveal post</a>, for anyone interested.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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